Self Interest: The Cannibalizing Of One’s Self!

Over the past few months I have had a lot of time to think about stuff. I actually have thought about a lot of stuff come to think about. One of those things is “life” and what it means. You see void of any spiritual aspirations, life is just life. I started to ask to myself without God what is life and what value does life have.

I have come to a few conclusions in my own self-reflection, I Lionel Woods would be a mess. Here is what I mean, at one point in time of the last few months, I began to put God on the back burner. Actually maybe more than that. Putting God on the back-burner actually lead to me not wanting to write and taking a break. I slowly began to turn inwardly and pursue my own self-interest. I started to contemplate, “what if this whole Jesus thing is the greatest trick of all” you know sorta like the movie “The Last Temptation of Jesus”.

Paul writes the most provocative statement in all of scripture in Corinthians when he says “If Christ has not raised from the dead we are to be the most pitied of all men”. This statement is true. He goes on to say “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”.

Let me ask what is the pursuit of life outside of Christ? Why work hard? Why be honest? Why love, why be tender? Why sacrifice? Why take care of your children? Why love your spouse, heck why even get married? Why workout? Why keep a job? Why give to others? Outside of Christ, eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will die and that is all! Everything over the course of your life was a huge waste of time. Everything you have attained will mean nothing, everything you valued is now worthless to you, all the good you did (even if it carries on) will reap you no reward, you will become dust, a forgotten tombstone, a hole in the gr0und in which paper and debris will blow over and that is all.

I started to dwell on things that hurt me in the past, and people through whom such pained entered. I started to despise them. I withdrew emotionally and said, I rather walk alone. But over the last few months my heart started to drift the other way. I started to really think of Christ’s life. We see the eternal Son emptying Himself (Philippians 2:1-13) and becoming a man. We see Him walking among us, displaying compassion, tenderness, living sacrificially, caring for the rejected, rebuking the arrogant, chastising the self-righteous. We see Him ultimately taking our sins upon Him, though being innocent, then being abused, betrayed, abandoned and ultimately murdered and even more importantly bearing our sin punishment. And we see Him do it all not for Himself but for us.

We see the Son do this with what the bible calls “for the joy set before Him….” He didn’t go complaining, he didn’t come complaining, He didn’t ask whats in this for me. He did it out of love and ultimately if we turn to Him we too can partake of this love. This love compels us to forgive, to love, to surrender, to give, and to ultimately lay down our lives.

Little slogans like “its all about me” sound cute and innocent but they are detrimental to experiencing the joy of ETERNAL LIFE. I am not writing this to point fingers but to just share that outside of Christ life is meaningless to me. I don’t want to be a good person I want to live for my own self-interest! Why? Because this is the only life I will get and might as well enjoy it till the end, whenever that comes. However, if the resurrection is real and my life is now hidden in Christ, then I have every reason to be overjoyed, to live for others and to share this love i me with everyone I come in contact with! Why? Because I am going to live forever with God and those who received His free gift of grace. Can life get any better than that?